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1/25/2012 First Person Radio

Please join Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas on First Person Radio as they talk about SOPA & PIPA with three experts from the field. Don't know what SOPA and PIPA are?

(from Whatis.com) The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261, is legislation introduced in the United States House of Representatives to enforce current laws that make stealing intellectual property and trafficking in counterfeit goods illegal.

The legislation will provide a way for United States courts to penalize foreign websites that are currently outside the reach of United States courts. If SOPA becomes law, Internet service providers (ISPs) will be required to filter domain names to identify sites that are found by federal courts to be in violation of the law. ISPs will be required to redirect traffic from such sites. The legislation also specifies that a federal court can order a direct payment company to sever ties with a site that has been found in violation.

Proponents of the legislation are eager to shut down sites that break United States laws, pointing out that online piracy and the trafficking of counterfeit goods deprives the United States economy of a highly significant amount of revenue each year.

Critics of the legislation and its United States Senate equivalent, the Protect IP Act, are concerned that legislators do not fully understand how the Internet works. On the technical side, IT security professionals throughout the world have raised concerns that PIPA's domain name system (DNS) filtering is incompatible with DNSSEC. DNSSEC is a set of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards that address vulnerabilities in the Domain Name System (DNS) and protect it from online threats.

Continue reading about SOPA and PIPA:

The United States House of Representatives website has more information about SOPA.

The United States Senate website has more information about PIPA.
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Steven Renderos leads Main Street Project's media justice and community building efforts, including the Minnesota Digital Justice Coalition and our collaborative work with the nationwide Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net). He brings more than seven years of community organizing and training experience, and more than ten years of filmmaking and media production experience.

Prior to joining Main Street Project, Steven served as Project Coordinator of the Minnesotano Media Empowerment Project, an initiative of the Department of Chicano Studies at the University of Minnesota focused on improving the quality and quantity of media coverage and representation of Latinos in Minnesota. He currently serves on the boards of Organizing Apprenticeship Project, La Asamblea de Derechos Civiles, and the Center for Media Justice. Steven (aka DJ Ren) also hosts a show called Radio Pocho on KFAI Radio heard on Wednesday Nights 8pm to 10pm.

Ernesto Falcon, Director of Government Affairs. He joined Public Knowledge from the office of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), where he worked for three years as the senior legislative assistant dealing with issues related to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet. Ernesto previously worked on Capitol Hill for Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) for three years as a technology manager and legislative assistant. He originally came to Washington D.C. on an internship with Congressman George Miller (D-CA) in early 2004 shortly after graduating from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo with a degree in Political Science.

amalia coordinates the media policy initiatives of the Center for Media Justice and the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net). She has over 15 years of experience in community and cultural organizing, with a specific interest in human rights, cultural rights and traditional knowledge. At CMJ, amalia uses her extensive experience for field-building, community-building, and policy advocacy.

Born in Guatemala, she worked for many years at the Main Street Project–a MAG-Net anchor–in her hometown of Minneapolis. While there, she co-directed a nationally recognized four-state rural Latino capacity-buliding initiative called The Raíces Project. Nationally, amalia is a board member of the Indigenous Women’s Network, Main Street Project and the Media and Democracy Coalition.